Daisy lay on the bed, her body hot and dry, exhausted with weeping. The child kicked in her womb, but she was beyond feeling it: she herself was imprisoned in a horror from which there seemed to be no way out. It was two days since Jacko had brought her back to his house, and the oppression of her misery showed no sign of lifting. Her mind kept turning and turning within the narrow orbit of disaster, trying every way to reach back to the girl she had been before Hugo left her on that seat on the promenade. But it was as if a fog had closed down between her and the happy past—a fog in which she was utterly lost, and which made trivial things loom large out of all proportion. Hugo’s dressing-gown, for instance: she had wanted to keep it—to have something of his she could put round her. But, in the bustle of departure, the agony of saying good-bye to him, it had been forgotten. Hugo and his brother had gone off by an earlier train that afternoon, and he had packed the dressing-gown in his own bag; and now it seemed like an extra, wanton cruelty—not to have even this to remember him by.
Daisy shut her eyes, trying to summon up Hugo’s face. But it evaded her, she could not fix it: it started to form in her mind’s eye, then turned into something monstrous—a figment of the fog which choked and mocked her.
“Not asleep yet, my dear? This won’t do.”
She had not heard the door open. Jacko came over and sat on her bed.
“Is it very late?” she muttered.
“Nearly midnight. I think I’d better give you another sedative.”
“No. I don’t want—” She gripped his hand convulsively. “You won’t leave me? I haven’t anyone else.”
Jacko made soothing noises. The girl was staring at his face, with a wild, unfocused look.
“Haven’t you heard from him yet? Is he all right?”
“No news is good news, my dear. You must try not to excite yourself.”
“He might have written to me,” she said in a quavering voice.
“He will. But it wouldn’t be wise just at present. You do see that, don’t you?”
“I suppose so.” The girl lay back, closing her eyes. Jacko began to stroke her temples rhythmically: it was comforting. After a while she said:
“Do you think I’m very wicked?”
“Wicked? What is all this?”
“Well, I’m being punished, aren’t I?”
“Not for anything you’ve done.” Some faint insinuation in his tone made Daisy start upright: her night-dress slipped from one shoulder, revealing a blue-veined breast.
“Hugo isn’t wicked!” she cried. “You shan’t say that! I know he—stole things. But he was going to give all that up. He told me. He’s kind, and good. If he hadn’t lost that £50 betting—and he only did that for me. You don’t think he—”
“Look at me, Daisy.” Jacko’s voice had never been so gentle. She gazed at the ugly, pouchy face, deep into the brown eyes which never quite lost their imploring look. The faithful dog. The one friend she could trust.
“You know I only want to help you—you and Hugo. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you tell me all about it, then? It’s not good for you, keeping it bottled up. I’m saying this as your doctor. You’re heading for a nervous breakdown, and that won’t do the baby any good, or Hugo. Things go bad when they’re bottled up inside you.”
“Not now,” she sighed. “I’m so tired.”
“Tired? It’s not that. You’re afraid, my dear.”
Her body jerked, as if he had struck her. She gave him a startled, wary glance. “Of course I’m afraid. Hugo’s in danger.”
“I don’t quite mean that. Be honest with yourself. You’re afraid he really did it.”
Daisy’s first impulse was to get out of the room, get away from him. She scrambled to her knees, sobbing a little, but he bore her back and held her down by the shoulders, his thumbs kneading the plump flesh. Her head on the pillow rolled from side to side, as if to evade his eyes. He held her thus till she had grown calmer, then moved to the chair at her bedside. He was breathing hard. At last he said:
“We both want to help Hugo. I can’t help him unless I know what really happened.”
“But didn’t he tell you, when you came down to South-bourne?”
Jacko’s tongue flickered over his lips. He gave her a sidelong, speculative glance. “But was that the true story, all the story? Do you believe it yourself? If so, why are you afraid?”
“Oh, why do you torture me like this? I thought you were fond of me.”
“You are afraid. What do you think you were trying to run away from just now? Me? Not a bit of it. You couldn’t face the possibility of Hugo’s guilt. And you’ve been feeling guilty yourself, for suspecting Hugo. You can’t just shove all this dirty linen into a drawer and pretend it doesn’t exist.”
“Hugo never did it—not a cowardly thing like that. I know he couldn’t have.”
“All right, then, my dear. I don’t believe he’d do such a thing myself. So, as we both believe in him, why can’t we talk about it?” He gave her his engaging, rueful smile. “Or is it that you don’t quite trust me?”
“I dunno. I’m proper mazed.” Rubbing her eyes with her knuckles, like a child, Daisy lapsed into her childhood vernacular. “Proper mazed. I don’t know where I’m to.”
“Of course, if you feel you can’t trust me, there’s no more to be said.”
“Don’t you turn against me now, John,” she said forlornly. “I didn’t mean to hurt’ee. But sometimes—well, you can be ever so curious.”
“Curious? How?”
“Asking so many questions. Sort of for the fun of asking them. It used to make me uncomfortable.”
“You felt I was prying unwarrantably into your affairs?” he asked—not stiffly, but the girl felt his sympathy withdrawing like a tide.
“Oh, I don’t mean you’re a busybody,” she said in distress. “But—I’m no good at words—it’s as if you wanted to take people to bits and find what makes them tick. Like little boys do with frogs and insects and such. They don’t know they’re being cruel.”
“Well, I must say, you’re a pretty outspoken young woman. So I’m like a little boy tearing the wings off flies? You think I get a kick out of watching people squirm and wriggle?” His tone, even now, was more interested than affronted.
Daisy’s exhaustion gave her a sort of clairvoyance. She saw that the answer to Jacko’s last question might be “yes”; but she didn’t quite dare to say that.
“Hugo told me once you liked having power over people.”
“Who doesn’t?” Jacko eyed her quizzically. “Be honest now. Don’t you enjoy being able to make Hugo come to heel? Your sexual power over him?”
The girl flushed, rather shocked by the naked way he presented this truth. “It’s different when you love someone. That’s nothing to do with power.”
The silence lasted so long that presently Daisy turned her eyes on Jacko and was disconcerted to see his face working and his whole body shivering violently.
“Are you cold? I’m so sorry. I oughtn’t to be keeping you here.”
“So you think I’m incapable of love? That’s it?” The man’s voice frightened her: it sounded like some explosive mixture, barely under control, of self-pity, resentment, malice. How touchy men are, she thought—touchy and vain and difficult. But she felt she must make amends for whatever injury he imagined she had done him.
“I don’t mean that at all, Jacko. You’re twisting my words.” She had another flash of clairvoyance. Smiling at him—she did not realise how maternally—she went on, “You know, I believe you keep things bottled up as bad as anyone.”
“And, being a woman, you want to let the genie out of the bottle?” Gazing full at her, he said, “An attractive woman. I’m not your doctor all the time, my girl.”
She blushed, in a confusion of feelings, of which a kind of shamed gratification was not the least.
“I suppose you assume you’re perfectly safe with me,” Jacko went on, in an almost petulant tone. If he intended to put her out of countenance, he had not reckoned with the element of country frankness in her make-up.
“Oh, I should think I’m safe enough with anyone just now,” she replied, laughing. “Besides, you’re our friend.”
“Then why don’t you treat me as a friend, not a convenience?” His voice became smooth and melting, like honey. “Why don’t you let me help you and Hugo?”
“You’ve done so much already.”
“There’s plenty more to be done, if you’d really confide in me.”
And so it was that the girl told him everything about those last two days at Southbourne. Emotional exhaustion had created in her the automatism which makes one go forward, as a man, at the extreme limit of fatigue, will go on walking, for if he does not he must drop down and die. Daisy heard this automaton within herself talking, talking: her tongue seemed to remember little things which her mind had forgotten. And, partly anæsthetised though she was by exhaustion, she could still have the sense of being nearer to Hugo in re-living that time and repeating his words. But she said nothing about the burying of the revolver—not because she distrusted Jacko, but because the horror of that episode, as shameful to remember as if they had made love over a corpse, inhibited her.
However, when she had finished Daisy felt wonderfully relaxed—floating and unharassed, as if she had given birth—and this filled her with gratitude to Jacko. She pressed his hand.
“Good girl,” he said. “You feel better already, don’t you? What did I tell you?”
“Yes. I do. But it will be all right for Hugo? Say it will. Now you’ve heard—”
“I don’t see how the police could prove anything against him—”
“But, Jacko, it’s not a question of—he’s innocent. He must be,” Daisy exclaimed.
“Provided he hid that revolver of his in a really safe place.”
Daisy stared at him, aghast. “Revolver? I didn’t—”
“You remember, his brother asked him about it, and Hugo said he’d ‘got rid of the nasty firearm.’ I just hope he got rid of it thoroughly,” said Jacko in a light voice.
“Oh yes. We”—Daisy broke off, rubbing her fingers against her mouth—“we decided he mustn’t have it any more—after what happened at his brother’s house.”
Jacko did not pursue the topic. They talked for a little longer, Jacko very brisk and encouraging; then, giving her a chaste kiss on the forehead, he left her.
Daisy slept late the next morning. When the housekeeper brought in her breakfast-tray, there was an affectionate note from Jacko saying he had been called out of London but would get back in the evening and looked forward to dinner with her.
At Southbourne the Chief Constable was in conference with Chief Inspector Nailsworth and Detective-Inspector Thorne. They had just come from the inquest upon their colleague, which had been adjourned for a fortnight. The three men were discussing plans, for the investigation had ground to a standstill. Thorne had spent a considerable part of the two days interviewing the occupants of houses in Queen’s Parade, starting with Princess Popescu, her companion and her maid. But no further evidence had come to hand which could give them a lead to the murderer: nor was the cabby, Charles Poore, able to provide any further identification. Indeed, it had become plain to Thorne that none of the few eye-witnesses who had seen the murderer would be able to identify him with any certainty at all.
One trail, which at first seemed promising, had petered out. A crook called Joe Samuels was discovered to have been staying at the Queen’s Hotel, with two friends, on the day of the murder. The party had checked out of the hotel at six o’clock that evening, however, and returned to London by car. It could have been a feint departure; but Joe’s alibi stood up like a rock to the C.I.D. inquiries—he produced several witnesses, other than the man and woman who had accompanied him, to vouch for his arrival in London at a time which could not possibly have allowed him to commit the murder. There was nothing against Joe, except that he had served two sentences for jewel thefts. Nevertheless, one of Thorne’s colleagues was checking Joe’s alibi once again.
Nailsworth had detailed a sizeable part of his force to the search for the weapon, with equal unsuccess. The foreshore was scrutinised at low tide, every garden in Queen’s Parade searched and its street drains investigated. The search was continuing, and police officers were making a round of the Southbourne hotels and lodging-houses to inquire if any suspicious behaviour or abrupt departure had taken place on the night of the murder. But it looked now as if the murderer had not panicked to the extent of throwing away his weapon. Thorne’s hunch that it might be a political affair, though he played it down in the Chief Inspector’s presence, was not weakened by anything yet discovered, and he had asked the Special Branch for a dossier of the Princess.
The only positive gain so far, and it was a very small one, was the evidence of the Brighton shopkeeper. He had identified the cap as one from the consignment which had come in a month ago: up to the date of the murder, he had only sold four—three to men and one to a girl. He might or might not be able to identify the male purchasers, but the girl—a striking young blonde, and pregnant—he would recognise again anywhere.
“So we’re back to the old ‘on information received,’” said Thorne.
“Not a very hopeful prospect,” the Chief Constable remarked.
“Oh, you’d be surprised, sir. Sooner or later, somebody talks—maybe the criminal himself can’t keep his trap shut. Ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that’s how we get the first break.”
“Nobody in Southbourne’s talking about anything else. But it doesn’t seem to have got us any further.” The elephantine Nailsworth gave his peaky, perky little London colleague a look, at once severe and faintly jocular, which attested to their improved relations.
“If this was a bona fide attempt at burglary,” Thorne began. The Chief Inspector raised his eyes ostentatiously to the ceiling, but Thorne pressed on regardless, “—the maid, Velma, is the weak point. She doesn’t speak English well, and she’s obstinate—peasant type, I should think. I can’t get anything out of her, but I feel she’s more on the defensive than she should be. Who else could have told our man where the Princess keeps her jewels? And who’d break into a house without knowing that much?”
“The Princess has had other maids.”
“Oh yes, sir. And we’ll have to check up on them. But Velma’s the only one who knew the house would be empty that night.”
“She and Mrs. Felstead,” the Chief Constable put in. “But I agree. We’d be wasting our time on Mrs. Felstead.”
Thorne said his next step would be to interview the Italian maid again. He would try to check her movements on the day of the murder, any telephone calls she had made, and so on. If it could be discovered that she had been in contact with a stranger that day, or before it even, the police would have something to bite on. To-morrow Thorne would return to London and take over the inquiries, which were already proceeding, into the movements of jewel thieves known to Scotland Yard.
The three men discussed press publicity—further appeals for anyone to come forward who had noticed any suspicious behaviour; circulars to pawnbrokers in case the murderer had been foolish enough to get rid of his gun that way—the ballistics experts, working on the bullet found in Stone’s body, had now reported on the calibre and possible make of the weapon. The rope and hook discovered in the parcel were new, or at least unused, but no local shop had sold such an article: they had probably been bought separately, and the rope bent on to the hook by the purchaser. So the rope provided no clue worth following up at present. Had the criminal used it, it would have narrowed down the police investigations, for Scotland Yard had records of all criminals habitually employing this method: but—and this was one of the most baffling features of the case—the hooked rope had been left on the beach, neatly parcelled up, for anyone to find: there were no scratches on the hook: it had never been put to any use, nefarious or otherwise.
“Maybe,” remarked Nailsworth, in a spirit of unwonted fantasy, “it was mislaid on the beach by a mountaineer.”
“Why not a gymnast?” Thorne asked. “Some small boy might have pinched it out of his school gymnasium, for a dare. These nippers’ll get up to anything.”
“Well, gentlemen, I think we’d better dismiss the parade now. Unless there’s anything more—?” Colonel Allison rose to his feet. As he moved to the door, a police constable entered.
“Gentleman wants to see the Chief Inspector, sir. Says he has information about the Stone case.”
“Another of these lunatics, I suppose,” muttered Nailsworth. He had been pestered enough already by the cranks, crackpots and zealous nitwits who always spring up on the track of a murder investigation and cling like brambles to the policeman’s boots.
Colonel Allison passed to his Chief Inspector a visiting card which the constable had handed him.
“Dr. John Jaques. Never heard of him,” said Nailsworth. “Well, I suppose we’d better see him, sir? Bring him in, my lad. And the shorthand wizard.”